The written language used in Korea at this time includes 1800 Chinese characters that are officially approved and the Korean phonetic words. The ratio of usage of Chinese characters to Korean phonetic words in the current publications in Korea namely newspapers, magazines and books is approximately 1 to 5. In practice, the complete elimination of Chinese characters is not a matter of impossibility, but merely is a matter of inconvenience. As for current popular novels in Korea are concerned, many writers and publishers like to use only Korean phonetic words without a mix of Chinese characters. Furthermore, in order to facilitate telecommunication, Chinese characters have already been replaced by Korean phonetic words in the telegraphs of some news agencies.
The phonetic words used in the Korean language are essentially composed of 24 letters including 14 vowels and 10 consonants. In addition, there are 12 kinds of special compositions of the phonetic words of frequent occurence and 4 kinds provided for beauty purpose (as shown in the accompanying chart 1 through 5). Although the Korean language adopts phonetic words (phonetic spelling), the method of arrangement of its syllabic alphabet is different from the method of spelling in the Roman language system. Being influenced by the Chinese culture perhaps, the construction style of Korean phonetic words is much like that of Chinese characters which is square. This will be easily understood from the following explanation with reference to an example of the English word "MARKET." Assuming that English letters are equivalent to Korean syllabic alphabet elements, the word "MARKET" will be arranged in accordance with the common practice of the arrangement of Korean phonetic words as:
______________________________________ M A K E R T ______________________________________
For the aforesaid reason the operator has to move up and down and right and left when typing with a Korean typewriter in order to type out the phonetic words in a square style. However, it is not really this simple. To explain this, reference is made to the following example:
" " is composed of two Korean syllabic letters and . PA0 " " is composed of four Korean syllabic letters , , , and .
It should be noted here that the sizes and positions of the same syllabic character " " used in the above mentioned two words are different from each other. According to the inventor's study there are fifteen different forms of arrangement (that is, the positions in which Korean syllabic alphabet elements are arranged) and four different sizes of Korean syllabic alphabet-element which constitute the structure style of Korean phonetic words. In order to write desired Korean phonetic words the proper combination of these forms and sizes are required. However, because the typewriters currently used in Korea can only perform movements up-and-down and left-to-right, and have only two different sizes of the syllabic alphabet elements currently available, therefore the Korean words typed therefrom not only lack beauty but also are different from the original words in style.
Some examples of comparisons of words made up of Korean phonetic alphabet elements are shown as follows:
______________________________________ original words typed words ______________________________________
The difficulties in typing desired Korean Phonetic words even with the aid of the currently most advanced Korean typewriters can be understood from the examples illustrated above--that is not only are the styles and sizes of Korean syllabic alphabet elements improper but also the arrangement of the syllabic alphabet elements in proper size and in proper position are different from what are required in the original words. The arrangement of the syllabic alphabet is in fact a unique feature of Korean phonetic words and also is the main obstacle to the computer data processing of Korean phonetic words. In order to enable computer data processing of Korean phonetic words the entire Korean country has been given extensive encouragement to carry out a program of development, but no progress has been made yet and there is still no Korean typewriter that is more or less satisfactory.
The object of this invention is to provide a novel method and equipment for data processing for Korean phonetic words so that the above-mentioned problems of typing and difficulties in data processing of Korean phonetic words can be solved.
Another object of this invention is to facilitate the electronic data processing of Korean phonetic words by the classification and formulation of the construction styles of Korean phonetic words in fifteen forms of arrangement of syllabic alphabet, in which each form is designated by a specific code composed of seven binary numbers.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a Korean electronic typewriter that processes the Korean phonetic words which are designated by two to six binary numbers, which are stored in a computer memory device and type out by a dot matrix typing head as required when the appropriate keys are pressed.
A further object of this invention is to provide a Korean electronic typewriter and communication equipment system with the aid of which the Korean phonetic words are computerized and designated specific computer codes composed of eight binary numbers and transmitted by the output signals of the electronic typewriter through communication lines to a remote location, or received from a remote location and typed out.